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Worker, injured during partial roof collapse at former mill building on Water Street, taken to Baystate with serious injuries

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6-11-13 - Holyoke - Firefighters work to rescue a worker who suffered serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, when a section of roof fell while they were dismantling a building at 14 Water St.
(Lt. Thomas Paquin / Holyoke Fire Department)

Updated at 5:31 p.m. to include Building Commissioner Damian Cote saying the company doing the demolition didn't have a permit and police identifying the victim as Michael Sullivan, 59, of Holyoke.

HOLYOKE -- A worker injured during a partial roof collapse late Tuesday morning at the former Crocker Mill building on Water Street was taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The worker was hurt during demolition at 14 Water St., but Max Salvage and Maintenance Inc., of 20 Hadley Mill Road, the company working on the site, didn't have a permit for demolition, Building Commissioner Damian J. Cote said.

A man who answered the phone at Max Salvage and Maintenance said the company had no comment.

Fire Lt. Thomas G. Paquin said the accident was reported about 11:30 a.m.

A crew working on ladders on the building's third floor was dismantling the roof when a section measuring approximately 40 feet by 6 feet crashed down on one of the workers. Paquin said the victim was freed from the wreckage by his co-workers and a police officer who was at the scene.

06.11.2013 | HOLYOKE -- The mill building at 14 Water St. where a worker was injured when a section of roof collapsed Tuesday.John Suchocki | The Republican

Paquin said most of the building's roof had already been taken down.

Deputy Fire Chief Bob Shaw and Cote ordered the work stopped, Paquin said. Officials from the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration were summoned to the scene.

“We have compliance officers at the scene, or soon will have, and we are looking into what happened,” said Mary Hoye, director of OSHA's Springfield office.

OSHA, by statute, has up to six months to complete an investigation; however, most are completed within a shorter period of time, Hoye said.

The property is owned by Quantum Properties LLC.

Cote said Max Salvage and Maintenance filed an application with his office for a demolition permit for 14 Water St. accompanied by a $300 check a few weeks ago. But Cote said he was still reviewing the application and had yet to issue the permit to allow demolition on the site.

In terms of a penalty for working without a permit, one step the city can take is to double the permit fee, which in this case would be $600, he said.

A demolition permit costs $150 plus $50 per floor. The check Max Salvage and Maintenance submitted appears to be for a site with three floors, at $50 a floor, but Cote said he wasn't sure of that.